1990: Mandrake the Magician

About this episode

The episode explores a father's fight against cigarette advertising in Black communities in 1990 Chicago.

A middle-aged single dad in Chicago was outraged by all the cigarette billboards popping up in Black communities. In 1990, he picked up a paint roller and became an anti-tobacco vigilante. And he did it all under a secret identity. This episode was written by Josh Levin, One Year’s editorial director. One Year’s senior producer is Evan Chung. This episode was produced by Kelly Jones, Olivia Briley, and Evan Chung. It was edited by Joel Meyer and Derek John, Slate’s executive producer of narrative podcasts. Merritt Jacob is our senior technical director. We had mixing help from Kevin Bendis. Join Slate Plus to get a special behind-the-scenes conversation at the end of our season about how we put together our 1990 stories. Slate Plus members also get to listen to all Slate podcasts without any ads. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People in this episode

Host: Josh Levin

Topics covered

• anti-tobacco activism
• community action
• cultural history
• identity
• advertising impact

Keywords

• cigarette billboards
• Black communities
• vigilante
• activism
• Chicago
• 1990

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Slate, Acast

Places: Chicago

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